Observing the Sun

WARNING 

The Sun is a very bright celestial orb. 
NEVER – NEVER – NEVER EVER
look at the Sun with your naked eyes.

You might lose your ability to see instantly

The sun is a very bright object and it can best be observed by projecting its image at some convenient place. This also has one other advantage and that is many can simultaneously observe.  The sun is the only star whose surface can be observed. Galileo was one of the first persons to carefully observe the sunspots on the solar surface and showed that the Sun rotates on its axis. 

It was also seen that the solar disk is not uniformly bright.  It is bright at the centre and less bright close to its limb.  The phenomenon is called solar limb darkening.  Later astronomers found that the  Sun gives out energy at a very constant rate – this we know as solar constant.  You will see how to do these observational exercises.

On these pages, we have given you many possibilities of projecting the image of the sun. You may try these as shown here or use your ingenuity and improve these methods to suit your requirement.

Do share pictures of your solar projection system – we will be happy to publish those here.

Check out these links below about projecting the sun and for doing some interesting observational projects.